My friend James R. Blackburn passed away on May 4, 2007, after a long illness. "Blackey," as he was known to all, was closely linked to the game of pot-limit Omaha, as he loved to play the game and had a lot to do with the rapid growth of Omaha as a big-money form of poker. As regular readers of my column know, my favorite poker form is pot-limit Omaha high.
When I lived in Michigan, I played a form of Omaha - we called it "two by three" - back in the '70s. It differed from the Omaha of today in that the cards were exposed one at a time, rather than having a flop of three cards. I first encountered Omaha in Nevada when it was brought there in the spring of 1982, right after the
World Series of Poker had ended. Bobby Turner and an Oriental lady from the Seattle area named Gwen (nicknamed "The Dragon Lady") started playing heads-up limit Omaha high in the old Golden Nugget cardroom, and the game soon filled. It immediately became a regular event every day in that cardroom, attracting a mix of poker players from the Northwestern and Southern states, where the game was already played on a regular basis. The players from Oregon and Washington called it "nine-card." Those from the South had some regional names for it, but most called it Omaha.
The Golden Nugget, under Cardroom Manager Bill Boyd, was able to spread the game every day through the summer and fall, mostly at either $1-$2 or $2-$4 limit, straight high. The game was marketed for a while as "Nugget hold'em," but no one paid any attention to this. We all called it Omaha. I took an immediate liking to the game, and played it regularly for a month just to learn it well. This turned out to be a very good decision.
In January of 1983, Blackey Blackburn hosted a tournament at the Stardust Hotel and Casino called the
Stairway to the Stars. One day very early on in the tournament, a game of $5-$10-$25 blinds no-limit Omaha was spread. I do not know if Blackey was the original instigator of this game, but he sure encouraged it. Apparently, he had played a fair amount of the game back in Oklahoma. The dollars flowed by the thousands, and it was very hard to get a seat. I came in early the next morning and managed to play, and was rewarded by nearly 10 grand for being an early arrival. On day two, there were several no-limit Omaha games from which to choose, and it stayed that way, because everyone loved the action.
After about a week, a group of us pros decided that the game would be much better if it were played pot-limit instead of no-limit. (Frankly, we were concerned at the rate that some of the players were busting out and leaving town.) I remember one hand in particular that drove home the point to me. I had a hand that included an A-K combination and caught a flop of Q-J-10 with two hearts and a spade on the board. I bet, and got called in two places. The turn card was the K
, creating another two-flush on the board. The first player made a big overbet of the pot size, and the second player moved in. I had about 4 grand in front of me, and would have to put all of it in to see the river. The situation was perfectly obvious. I had the nuts, but both of the other players certainly did, also. I had no freerolls, whereas I was apt to go broke if either flush came, and the board pairing was also likely to kill my hand. I disgustedly mucked my cards. The board paired, and the flush came, as well. I would have sewered my money away if I had not folded the nuts.
We were able to switch the game of Omaha from no-limit to pot-limit. Blackey wanted the action to continue, saw the wisdom of what we were suggesting, and supported us. After the Stardust tournament was over, some people stayed in town, and we were able to keep the pot-limit Omaha game going at the Golden Nugget. Blackey got us a table in the corner of the cardroom that was designated for pot-limit Omaha, and had the rules of the game posted on the wall behind it.
One of the biggest reasons we were able to continue the game was that Blackey had recruited a doctor who was originally from India to play in the game regularly. "The Little Doc" became a regular player, and was one of the all-time great poker drawing cards. There was also a much bigger pot-limit Omaha game at the Nugget that Blackey sometimes
played in. The regulars included Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Roger Moore, and Sarge Ferris. Fortunately for Blackey, there was a fairly large supporting cast of lesser talent for these well-known players, and he was able to do OK in the game.
At every poker tournament after the 1983 Stardust tournament, pot-limit Omaha was spread as a money game. The casinos hosting poker tournaments, such as the Union Plaza, Caesars, and Vegas World, added pot-limit Omaha as a tournament event. Jack Keller had the best record in those contests, and also won the WSOP main event in 1984. Later that year, Jack went over to England and promoted the game there, with some help from people like Don O'Dea, Derek Webb, Derek Baxter, and others. The Brits and the Irish very quickly adopted pot-limit Omaha as their favorite poker form. London's Victoria Club started spreading a game of half razz, half pot-limit Omaha, with a buy-in of £1,000. For a long time, this was likely the biggest poker game spread on a sustained basis anywhere in the world. Swings in the £10,000 to £20,000 range were common. The English pound was pegged at around $1.50, on average, for most of that time. Nowadays, more of the top pot-limit Omaha players are from Europe than anywhere else.
My life was intertwined quite a bit with Blackey's. When he started the Poker Players Association back in 1984, I headed the project of writing the first publicly available poker rulebook. I had the assistance of input from many of the world's finest players, and we produced a high-quality work. I also wrote the first book on Omaha that year.
When Blackey wanted to go to Nepal in 1992 to get Omaha started there, he invited Garland Walters and me to go with him. To our great surprise, when we arrived, the locals actually had a small-stakes high-low split Omaha game in Kathmandu! This was in a country that had not even allowed foreigners in until the second half of the 20th century. We were in Kathmandu for about three months, and were able to have two or three decent games at Casino Nepal every week.
I could tell you enough Blackey stories to fill up
Card Player for decades, but I will sign off for now.
Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.
